As reported by the Chicago Tribune, Exelon must decide by the end of September whether or not Quad Cities' two reactors will continue operating past May 2017 -- the current cut off for their electricity generation capacity commitments. The dirty, dangerous, expensive, age-degraded and uncompetitive reactors have been hemorrhaging money.

Increasing the likelihood of a permanent shutdown, Exelon's Quad Cities has failed to clear PJM capacity auctions; Exelon lobbyists have failed, thus far, to convince IL state legislators to fork over $1.5 billion of ratepayer money to prop up its troubled reactors; and the DC PSC rejected Exelon's takeover of Pepco, by which it had hoped to funnel Mid-Atlantic ratepayer money to IL to bail out its troubled reactors.